Brussels, 18/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - At the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) Council in Luxembourg on Thursday 18 June, it was almost unanimously that the EU's employment ministers welcomed the European Commission's efforts at simplifying the way the so-called “European Semester” budgetary process works for 2015.
The ministers especially appreciated a more flexible timetable, which gives them more time to talk to the Commission. They also appreciated a more limited number of recommendations. Furthermore, a lower number of recommendations should facilitate their implementation, said European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen. The UK and Poland are two of the member states most pleased about this.
A simpler process does not, however, mean that the nature of the recommendations - which mainly aim at continuing the structural forms of labour markets - pleased everyone. First of all, there were detailed criticisms from Luxembourg and Austria, for example, which considered that raising the legal age of starting retirement was pointless as, in Luxembourg and Austria's opinion, the problem is more on the side of the effective age of those who retire. Sweden would have liked more attention paid to the mobility of workers - be this on national labour markets, between the member states, or between Europe and the rest of the world.
Hungary proceeded to confrontation by refusing to accept the Commission's recommendation of financing active labour market policies more to the detriment of Hungarian public works programmes. Hungary was only supported by seven member states and affirmed that it wanted to lodge a complaint, by way of a unilateral statement, to the European Council.
In addition, criticism was fairly rife about the nature of the recommendations selected by the Commission. The opinion of the Committee for Social Protection about the fact that the fight against poverty was marginalised in 2015 was supported by Italy and Greece. Others made more general criticisms about the social dimension being too weak and the support for macro-economic aspects too pronounced - especially in the eurozone. This was the case for France, Cyprus, Belgium, Malta, the Czech Republic and Croatia.
The Council finally reached a political agreement on the following four guidelines for member states' employment policies: - boosting demand for labour; - enhancing labour supply, skills and competences; - enhancing the functioning of labour markets; - fostering social inclusion, combating poverty and promoting equal opportunities. (Jan Kordys)